With the current stratospheric warming taking place over the Asian side of the pole and the shift in the coldest pool of air on earth I think we have a very interesting January ahead with a heck of a lot of winter to come. It’s the combination of what we’ve seen so far across a large part of Asia with one of the coldest December’s in history, the positioning of the strat warming and hints in modelling such as the ECMWF, that wets the appetite of the winter weather lover across Europe and North America. For those living in a large swath of Asia, including Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China and central Siberia, January looks less cold but while this region warms, so Europe and North America should turn colder.

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The ECMWF has been continuously showing the comeback of very cold/Siberian air back into eastern Europe at the end of next week and this will likely result in Moscow, Kiev down into Bucharest returning to the freezer. The stratospheric warming now taking place over northern Asia is pushing the coldest air west and back into Europe and I believe this cold will intensify and expand west through the first part of January.

While Moscow has already seen days at -18C and nights at -25C, if the models are correct and not overdone, next weekend on into the following workweek could see the coldest air of the season yet build in. This is very plausible given the type of stratospheric warming and the severity of cold experienced across a huge part of Asia. With the intensity and large expanse of the cold, it doesn’t just dissappear, it moves to another part of the world and the positioning of this warming and it’s coverage right across Northern Asia, suggests Europe and North America is likely up next for tough times.

While there is no guarentee that this severe and expanding cold will make it into the UK and Ireland or even that it takes hold across Europe at all but with this setup and major strat warming taking place after what we’ve seen in Asia, there is certainly a heck of a lot on the table. A lot of potential folks.

With an estimated 10-14 day lag between strat warming and release of arctic air into the mid-latitudes, my guess would be January 10th onwards before the western continent and UK/Ireland recieves any arrival of Siberian cold. The process looks to start across eastern Europe late next week with a plunge into the freezer the following week, I believe this cold will spread west.

Here is the forecasted stratospheric temperatures over top of the pole.

Initial

44 hrs

120 hrs

168 hrs

216 hrs

See video below for explaination.

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